(Laurence is avoiding Torres's gaze for most of this. It's very strange having her here-- but what is he going to do, *say* something about it? Not likely.)

They sit down. Going clockwise are Laurence, Tom, B'elanna, and Harry.

Laurence explains the concept of bidding on one's hand, or declaring how many tricks you think you can take. Generally you and your partner have to take the correct number of combined tricks, so you would ideally want to coordinate with them in private, which is not actually possible. "Table talk" (explicitly telling your partner about your hand) is prohibited, but there is a fine art to reading your partner's signs based on what exactly they bid, their expression, and so on.

Torres is his partner for the round.

Laurence, stone faced and not looking at her, bids 3.

This ... seems like a really good hand? 

"Bid 5."

B'elanna hasn't played a trick taking game before. Let's see... 12 tricks total, 8 total bids after half the other players have gone, so she should probably err on the low side? 

Wow did she kill Laurence's cat or something? Why's he pointedly not-looking at her like that?

No wait, it's probably a card game thing. She's not clear on the optimal facial expression strategy but probably that's what he's doing. No need to jump to conclusions.

Anyway back to her hand. Her cards are... Lower than average? She doesn't really know what that translates to in terms of expected tricks though. Between her low cards and the high other bids though...

"1."

Tom bid really high. Presumably that means he should bid high too, if his hand isn't terrible? It doesn't look terrible.

"Bid 5."

Apparently they're just going to clean up? Alright.

Paris and Kim lose very quickly.

Torres seems to be a reasonable partner, which surprises Laurence somewhat. She was over-cautious, if anything, but it's not exactly her fault that the other partnership overplayed so absurdly.

He's still going to be stiff and avoid addressing her directly, though. She was inexcusably rude to Tuvok.

"Come on Harry! That wasn't a 5 hand!"

Harry had, in fact, figured out that his bidding strategy didn't make sense about 1 trick into the hand. 

"I know, I know. I've never played a game like this before!"

Neither had B'elanna and she did alright.

Laurence is still being kind of weird, and they're between hands.

Laurence will drink deeply from his wine glass and start another hand.

(This will not, in fact, get him drunk)

(It wouldn't get him drunk even if it were real alcohol. Laurence can drink all of these people under the table. He won't notice any difference at this time.)

After they have gotten more accustomed to the game, a couple of hands in, Laurence finds an opening to ask a question. He's looking mainly at Kim but directs his gaze around to the rest of the table as well.

"Were you awoken by the disturbances last night?"

He's aware that B'elanna was involved, but it seems rude to presume on that knowledge since her outburst wasn't directed at him.

"Well, I mean, I was on the bridge when it happened, but you should really be talking to B'elanna, not me."

He turns to B'elanna.

"From what I could see, you just about saved the ship there!"

This was the third Weird Starfleet Thing. This one was worse than Laurence but better than the Caretaker. He'd been hoping the next one wouldn't involve any fear that the ship would be destroyed but it seems like that may have been to much to hope for.

Laurence raises his eyebrows at her. "Oh?" His tone is maybe slightly approving.

"I think the captain should get some credit too, but yes."

"The ship was trapped in a quantum singularity. I figured out how to expand a crack in the event horizon using a dekyon beam, which let us escape before the ship was cushed."

"Hey hey hey. Who flew us through the rupture?"

It was Tom. Tom flew them through the rupture.

Those sure are some words.

But he does understand "escape before the ship was crushed" and "saved the ship."

"Are such dangers commonplace for Starfleet vessels?"

Don't ask Harry, this is his first post.

Don't ask B'elanna, she was in the Maquis before Voyager.